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Don't blame Julia, blame Labor

By Graham Young - posted Monday, 11 March 2013


It was predictable that Julia Gillard would get the blame for Labor's performance in the Western Australian election, but that's part of Labor's problem – it's not Gillard that is to blame, it is Labor.

Seeking to shift blame for an election defeat and cure the problem by knifing a leader is a manifestation of the Labor disease.

We conducted a qualitative poll the day of the election and it is safe to say that the election was fought primarily on state issues, and one of those state issues was the poor performance of the state Labor party.

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Federal Labor did play a part, but as an entity in its own right, not because of its leader, and as an example of the failure of "brand" Labor.

You can see the relationship between the state and federal Labor brands by looking at Newspoll figures since the last WA election.

While Colin Barnett only just slipped over the line in 2008, winning against expectations, his position dramatically improved in mid to late 2010, as you can see from the graph below.

Newspoll doesn't have WA results between March and September in 2010, so it's difficult to know when the deterioration actually happened, but it probably happened at the same time as federal Labor went down in the polls, which was a function of Kevin Rudd, not Julia Gillard.

The federal election was in August 2010, and Kevin Rudd was deposed in June, but the dive in the ALP vote happened in May.

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The deterioration in the polls was the reason that Kevin Rudd was removed. Julia Gillard briefly broke that trend by winning the 2010 federal election, but it reasserted itself very quickly.

So the deterioration in Labor's vote happened at both levels of government at around the same time, but probably during Kevin Rudd's reign. So perhaps we should blame him?

Or perhaps not. Analysis of polling results from every state shows a decline in Labor's vote everywhere at about the same time.

This suggests not so much a Gillard or a Rudd effect, but a Labor effect, with poor performance at every level forming a negative feedback loop across the country to a point where it now appears that the natural state of the parties is somewhere in the region of Liberal 55-60% of the first preference vote and Labor 30-35%.

I can't imagine it will stay that way for ever - it's not in the nature for Australian elections to be as decisive as they have been lately - but it is a problem for the Labor Party everywhere and makes it imperative that they reform rather than recriminate.

The only exception to this rule, which in fact tends to prove it, is Victoria, where state Labor is polling well against the Liberals.

Analysis of our qualitative polling also tends to support this position. If Julia Gillard was the problem for WA Labor, then you would expect her to come up frequently as an issue for voters.

She does come up, but not that frequently, and generally from people who are traditional Liberal voters.

"Canberra" actually comes up more times than Gillard, and while it sometimes carries the connotation that federal labor is the problem, more often it is referring to the states rights agenda, which is particularly strong in WA.

Labor also gets, mentioned, but normally generically.

"All the hidden baggage that comes with Labor; the influence of small minded unionists."

"I have no real hesitation about him, other than that he doesn't really offer anything better than the Libs. It's his inevitable links to loony union people and Fed labor that I distrust."

"Labor in WA has consistently failed- refer Carmen Lawrence, Alan Carpenter. Gallop was not much better."

"I couldn't vote Labor at present- Canberra is a mess, Mark McGowan is a snide liar."

Voters in Western Australia appear to have been mostly voting for the Liberals, rather than against Labor. Interestingly McGowan had a positive approval rating from our participants, so it is hard to see the election as a personal repudiation of him.

So what is it that voters were voting for?

Economic development mostly. They see Barnett as competent, and Labor, at a state and federal level, as incompetent. There were concerns about infrastructure, which Labor had capitalised on with their promise of the Metronet.

However mention was made of the fact that Labor had under-costed the price of this project by $1 Billion, meaning it had a downside, so that while infrastructure and growing pains were an issue, the Labor solution tended to emphasise Labor's weakness in administration and delivery, rather than its ability to deal with the problems.

Western Australian voters were also voting for a government that would fight for WA rights against the federal government. This is a common theme in WA elections, and one that could present challenges to Barnett should Abbott win the next federal election. It could also present challenges to Abbott.

In the end, it appears that voters at the moment are looking for performance, not promises, from their governments. Barnett appears to have won because he has delivered.

Whether he can keep delivering when the mining boom runs out of steam, and what this might mean for Labor, is another set of questions.

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About the Author

Graham Young is chief editor and the publisher of On Line Opinion. He is executive director of the Australian Institute for Progress, an Australian think tank based in Brisbane, and the publisher of On Line Opinion.

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